The Black Guelph, a 2022 dark Irish crime thriller centered on Ireland’s Travellers community, had a limited theatrical release in the U.S., which kicked off on March 22. The film will be released on digital and VOD on June 25. 

John Connors’ directorial debut premiered at the Oldenburg Film Festival, where it won best film honor and the best actor for star Graham Earley. It is the first film directed by and depicting Irish Travellers, the indigenous ethnocultural group, also known as Minceir, which is among the most disadvantaged and discriminated against in Western Europe.

The film follows Kanto (Earley), a neighborhood drug dealer from Dublin’s Travellers community. He is desperate to piece his life back together and reconnect with his young daughter’s mother when he is surprised by a visit from his long-absent father (Paul Roe). Roe’s character is a survivor of abuse in Ireland’s industrial schools’ program, a system of reform schools run by the Catholic Church that often separated children from their families. 

The film’s title is a reference to 14th-century Italy when two ideological groups formed: The White Guelphs and the Black Guelphs. The Black Guelphs supported the influence of the Papacy over the economy and society. Connors is connecting that group to those in Ireland who supported the Catholic Church over the Travellers when the sexual abuse scandals surrounding the industrial school system first broke.

Online film packaging and financing platform Slated.Com has acquired worldwide rights, outside Ireland, to The Black Guelph and has partnered with Entertainment Squad to release the film.